Although there are a range of blogs and websites discussing and promoting the use of Twitter in education, there is little published research into how Social Media is being used to support learning, learners and the student experience (Junco, Heiberger, & Loken, 2011).

Many sources cite student’s increasing use of Social Networking sites as their preferred communication channel, and often in favour of email. Pew suggest 60% of teens using Social Networks use it to discuss their education, and 50% talk about specific work.
Furthermore, many suggest learners are forming their own Personal Learning Environments constituting of tools and services such as Twitter and other social media (Dabbagh & Kitsantas, 2011) (Hall, 2009). Hall also suggests these tools can impact upon the ‘blurring of the boundaries between personal, social spaces and formal learning contexts’ (p29).
Of the few academic articles researching the impact of Twitter in HE, Junco, Heiberger & Loken (2011) suggest their structured use of Twitter has positively impacted on both student engagement and achievement.

With this in mind, I set out to investigate student’s attitudes, perceptions and activity toward the use of Twitter in supporting learning, teaching and assessment. In so-doing, this research touches on a number of current debates in Higher Education.

This presentation will share the experiences of the teaching staff and students, using Twitter as a voluntary communication platform, and suggests the ‘3C’s of Twitter’ (TC3) in Education - Community, Communication, and Casual (informal) Learning,

Two lecturers from different disciplines (Healthcare Science and Computing) encouraged students to sign up and use Twitter, as a potential solution to help encourage communication between students, provide a backchannel throughout teaching activities, and to aid the communication channels between students and teaching staff.

This research investigates the current awareness of, and participation in, the Open Content Movement at one UK Higher Education Institution.

The Open Content Movement and Open Educational Resources (OER) can be seen as a potential method for reducing time and cost of Technology Enhanced Learning developments, however it’s sustainability, and to some degree, it’s success, is dependent upon a critical mass and large-scale participation. Teaching staff were invited to participate in a questionnaire. Respondents (n=59) were open to the idea of sharing their own content, and similar to other studies, demonstrated existing practices of sharing resources locally, amongst colleagues, however there was little formal, large-scale sharing using suitable licenses. The data gathered concurs with other research suggesting a lack of awareness to the Creative Commons licenses as well as a lack of participation with large Learning Object Repositories.